FOLLY BEACH

FOLLY BEACH by Dorothea Benton Frank

From the book jacket:

Home is the place that knows us best....

A woman returns to the past to find her future in this enchanting new tale of loss, acceptance, family, and love.

With its sandy beaches and bohemian charms, surfers and suits alike consider Folly Beach to be one of South Carolina's most historic and romantic spots.  It is also the land of Cate Cooper's childhood, the place where all the ghosts of her past roam freely.  Cate never thought she'd wind up in this tiny cottage named the Porgy House on this breathtakingly lovely strip of coast.  But circumstances have changed, thanks to her newly dead husband whose financial - and emotional - bull and mendacity have left Cate homeless, broke, and unmoored.

Yet Folly Beach holds more than just memories.  Once upon a time another woman found unexpected bliss and comfort within its welcoming arms.  An artist, writer, and colleague of the revered George Gershwin, Dorothy Heyward enjoyed the greatest moments of her life at Folly with her beloved husband, DuBose.  And though the Heywards are long gone, their passion and spirit lingers in every mango sunset and gentle ocean breeze.

And for Cate, Folly, too, holds the promise of unexpected fulfillment when she is forced to look at her life and the zany characters that are her family anew.  To her surprise, she will discover that you can go home again.  Folly Beach doesn't just hold the girl she once was...it also holds the promise of the woman she's always wanted - and is finally ready - to become.

I absolute LOVED this book!  I've read all of Ms. Frank's books, and I think, without a doubt, that this is the best one.  The setting is lush, the characters real and fun, and the story very interesting.  I especially liked the relationship between Cate and her sister, Patti.  As I was reading, I wondered about Dorothy and DuBose Heyward.  Were they real people or just characters in the book?  Well, it turns out, they were real and their story, as told in this book, was true to life.  

In reading the author's note at the back of the book, I got the impression that Cate in the book is really Ms. Frank.  Cate's investigation into the life of Dorothy Heyward mirrored Ms. Frank's research for this book.  The connection that Cate felt with Dorothy was very similar to Ms. Frank's connection with Dorothy.  Coincidence?  I think not.

If you like Ms. Frank's books, you need to read this one.  Put it at the top of your TBR list.

SOME THINGS CHANGE...BUT MOST STAY THE SAME

I was looking over my post, 100 Things About Me, and decided it might be time to update that list a little bit.

I've been married to Dom for almost 37 years. And the majority of the time has been good.

Dom and I have now been married over 41 years!

Donna and her husband, Hank, live next door to us. Susan and her husband, Kendall, and her younger daughter Ashlie live about 40 minutes away. Susan's older daughter, Shelby, lives with us. John, his wife Claudia, and their two children, Darby and Brady, live in Pennsylvania.
Divorce has happened to all the kids.  Donna still lives next door to us.  Susan and Ashlie now live in Cumming, about 10 minutes away.  And Shelby, after being on her own for a while, has moved back in with us.  John is currently living in Ocean City, NJ.

We have two dogs, Maggie and Teddy. Maggie was given to me as a puppy by our former next-door neighbor. She's a black lab mix. Maggie has a LOT of allergies and I have to give her allergy shots every two weeks. My nursing training has paid off!

Teddy was given to us by another neighbor. She got him from a friend who was going to have him put to sleep because he couldn't get him housebroken. He was 2 months old at the time. I housebroke him within a week. Teddy is very timid and scared of a lot of things. We think he must have been abused before we got him. Teddy has a severe heart problem, dilative cardiomyopathy, and is on 4 different cardiac meds daily. He's basically living on borrowed time.

We lost our dear Teddy 2 years ago.  He died after doing one of his favorite things - chasing a bunny in our backyard.  Such a sweet boy - we still miss him terribly.  Maggie is getting older and slowing down a lot.  She still has all her allergies, but no more shots.  Now we can add Cushing's Syndrome and hypertension to her list of problems.  Shelby brought her dog, Lucky, with her, so we're a 2-dog family again.

I need to lose another 15 pounds.
Unfortunately, the number has gone up to 30 pounds needed to lose!

My right leg is ½” longer than my left.
Obviously I don't know my left from my right.  It's my left leg that is longer!

Even though I know it's not good for me, I love to get tan in the summer.
I still love the look of a tan, but since having a melanoma removed I've been staying out of the sun and away from tanning beds.  I'm thinking of getting a spray tan to get a little bit of color.

I had rhinoplasty (a nose job) about 20 years ago. I love my new nose!
And I've had my upper eyelids done and a spot of liposuction on my spare tire and love handles.  I've been told it makes me look younger and I feel better about myself now.  Now, what can I take care of next???


That's not really a lot of changes in the past 4 years or so.  A bit more gray hair, a few (HA!) more pounds, some more candles on the birthday cake.  I guess things really do stay the same!

DO YOU DO FACEBOOK?

I love Facebook!

I have found so many people from my past on there.  A big bunch of high school classmates, some of whom I've gotten together with in the past few years.  Some family members that I haven't seen or heard from in many, many years.  I just found my old hairdresser - one of only 2 who knows how to cut my hair properly.

I've "met" a lot more through playing games like FarmVille and FrontierVille and have become quite friendly with some of them.  In fact, I'm planning a trip to meet one of them next year.  Many who read as much as I do.  Some who like the same music I do.

At first I thought this whole social networking thing was just for teenagers and young adults.  But I've found more and more people of a "certain age."  It's never too late to make new friends and share thoughts and ideas.

Click on that link in my right sidebar - the one with the picture of me and my "boyfriend" John McDermott - and be my friend on Facebook!

GOD SAVE THE MARK

GOD SAVE THE MARK by Donald E. Westlake was read for the Just For Fun Reading Challenge 2011.

From Amazon.com:

* mark n. An easy victim; a ready subject for the practices of a confidence man, thief, beggar, etc.; a sucker. - Dictionary of American Slang, Thomas Y. Crowell Co., 1960

That's the long definition of a mark.  But there's a shorter one.  It goes:

* mark n. Fred Fitch

What, you ask, is a Fred Fitch?  Well, for one thing, Fred Fitch is the man with the most extensive collection of fake receipts, phony bills of sale, and counterfeit sweepstakes tickets in the Western Hemisphere, and possibly in the entire world.  For another thing, Fred Fitch may be the only New York City resident in the twentieth century to buy a money machine.  When Barnum said, "There's one born every minute, and two to take him," he didn't know about Fred Fitch; when Fred Fitch was born, there were two million to take him.  Every itinerant grifter, hypester, bunk artist, short-conner, amuser, shearer, short-changer, green-goods worker, pennyweighter, ring dropper, and yentzer to hit New York City considers his trip incomplete until he's also hit Fred Fitch.  He's sort of the con-man's version of Go:  Pass Fred Fitch, collect two hundred dollars, and move on.  What happens to Fred Fitch when his long-lost Uncle Matt dies and leaves Fred three hundred thousand dollars shouldn't happen to the ball in a pinball machine.  Fred Fitch with three hundred thousand dollars is like a mouse with a sack of catnip:  He's likely to attract the wrong kind of attention.

Add to this fact that Uncle Matt was murdered, by person or persons unknown, and that someone now seems determined to murder Fred as well, mix in two daffily charming beauties of totally different types, and you have a perfect setup for the busiest fictional hero since the well-known one-armed paperhanger.  As Fred Fitch careens across the New York City landscape - and sometimes skyline - in his meetings with cops, con men, beautiful girls, and (maybe) murderers, he takes on some of the loonier aspects of a Dante without a Virgil.  Take one part comedy and one part suspense and shake well - mostly with laughter.

Surprise, surprise.  A free download for my Kindle that was good!  This book was funny.  Poor Fred.  The con men had him coming and going.  He couldn't tell the good guys from the bad.  Whom to trust?  Where to go?  A kidnapping, a dead man in a closet, a disappearing drunk, a sleeping doctor.  All here.  And more.

I really liked this book.  So much so that I'm going to look for other books by this author.  And they won't have to be free Kindle downloads either!

BLACKBIRD FLY

BLACKBIRD FLY by Lise McClendon

From Amazon.com:

Behind the golden stone walls of a village in southwest France, American Merle Bennett finds solace from her grief while renovating her late husband's ancestral home.  But things don't go as planned.  Soon any calm she feels in her French summer is overshadowed by secrets from the past.  A crumbling house, a deranged squatter, unfriendly and violent villagers, a surprise in the garden house - it makes a girl almost wish for the sleepy suburbs.  But Merle can't go home until all is resolved, one way or another.

From this description, this sounded like an interesting book.  It got great reviews on Amazon. And the price was right - free for the Kindle.  So I downloaded it.

This had to be one of the most disjointed books I've ever read.  The story jumped all over the place, from past to present.  Usually that works for me, but in this book, even the past was out of sync.  Characters came out of nowhere - I had to keep flipping back to see if I had missed something.  The story was unbelievable.  Merle spent a lot of money fixing up this French house, after finding out that her husband left her almost no money when he died.  The entire book just didn't ring true for me.

For me, in this case, I got exactly what I paid for - nothing.

SHE'S BACK...

after a week in the "computer hospital" and she's working fine!

THE ISLAND

THE ISLAND by Elin Hilderbrand was read with an online book group.

From the book jacket:

Birdie Cousins has thrown herself into the details of her daughter Chess's lavish wedding, from the floating dance floor in her Connecticut backyard pond to the color of the cocktail napkins.  Like any mother of a bride-to-be, she is weathering the storms of excitement and chaos, tears and joy.  But Birdie, a woman who prides herself on preparing for every possibility, could never have predicted the late-night phone call from Chess abruptly announcing that she's canceled her engagement.

It's only the first hint of what will be a summer of upheavals and revelations.  Before the dust has even begun to settle, far worse news arrives, sending Chess into a tailspin of despair.  Reluctantly taking a break from the first new romance she's embarked on since the recent end of her thirty-year marriage, Birdie circles the wagons and enlists the help of her younger daughter, Tate, and her own sister, India.  Soon all four are headed to beautiful, rustic Tuckernuck Island, off the coast of Nantucket, where their family has summered for generations.  No phones, no television, no grocery store - a place without distractions where they can escape their troubles.

But when sisters, daughters, ex-lovers, and long-kept secrets come together on a remote island, what might sound like a peaceful getaway becomes much more.  Before summer has ended, dramatic truths are uncovered, old loves are rekindled, and loves make themselves known.  It's a summertime story only Elin Hilderbrand can tell, filled with the heartache, laughter, and surprises that have made her page-turning, bestselling novels as much a part of summer as a long afternoon on a sunny beach.

I really enjoyed this book.  A perfect read for these hot summer days.

Birdie had recently ended her marriage and had started dating a man with whom she envisioned spending the rest of her life.  Her sister, India, had lost her husband 15 years before - he had committed suicide - and she still carried bits and pieces of him with her.  Tate, the younger daughter, lived a very successful life but had no  special person with whom to share it.  And Chess, distraught over the end of her engagement, carried a deep secret that she couldn't share.

All four women used the time on Tuckernuck Island to work through their specific problems, and by the end of the summer they had all made major changes in their lives.  The ending might have been a little too "happy" but it seemed to fit the book and the characters.

I don't think I've read any other books by Ms. Hilderbrand, but I will be looking for some in the future.

ON AGATE HILL

ON AGATE HILL by Lee Smith

From Amazon.com:

A dusty box discovered in the wreckage of a North Carolina plantation house contains the remnants of an extraordinary life:  an 1870's diary of a young girl, letters, poems, songs, newspaper clippings, court records, marbles, rocks, dolls, and bones.  It's through these treasured mementos that we meet the unforgettable heroine of Lee Smith's new novel.

Raised in the smoldering ruin of the post-Civil War American South, young Molly Petree, now orphaned, has no intention of wasting time on self-pity.  She means to live her life to its fullest.  So, when a mysterious benefactor appears out of her father's past to rescue her, she doesn't look back - until she is an old woman and returns to the farm on Agate Hill.  Spanning half a century, On Agate Hill tells the story of a woman who risks everything to remain true to herself.  It's a novel of obsessive love, unexpected adventures, and luck - both good and bad.  Like a ballad of the Old South, Molly Petree's tale resonates with passion, humor, and drama.

I've had this book sitting on the shelf for a while but never got around to reading it.  I'm glad I finally picked it up and started.  I really enjoyed the book.  Written in different formats - diary entries, letters, court records - it follows Molly from around age 13 until her death.  There is quite a varied cast of characters, including Molly's childhood friend Mary White, the housekeeper Selena, Molly's teaching friend Agnes, her husband Jacky, and her mysterious benefactor Simon Black.  Everyone made a lasting impression on Molly and helped shape her into the woman she became.

The writing format was a little hard to follow in parts - it was hard to keep track of just who was telling the story at the time.  The outcome of a few of the characters was never told, leaving much to the reader's imagination.  But, all in all, I thought it was a very interesting look into country life in the late 18th century.

A COTTAGE BY THE SEA

A COTTAGE BY THE SEA by Ciji Ware

From the back of the book:

Some might call it running away...But after a scandalous Hollywood divorce, Blythe Stowe considered it damage control for body and soul.  The pain, the humiliation, the daily tabloids shouting details as her famous husband dumped her for her own sister demanded a serious getaway:  to the wild coast of Cornwall and a cottage by the sea that her Wyoming grandmother claimed had been home to her ancestors.

Some might call it chance...But Blythe encountered more than just a quaint retreat nestled amid vivid skies and gorgeous ocean.  And she had the odd sensation that her wickedly handsome neighbor Lucas Teague was more than a British gentleman going broke.  He might be her destiny....

This book was sent to me by a friend who loved it.  I had high hopes, but it just didn't do it for me.

It seemed that Blythe could "see" into the past by staring at and touching a family genealogy chart found in Barton Hall in Cornwall.  By doing this, she learned about the earlier inhabitants of this house - people she would learn were her ancestors.  The book would jump between the present and the past.  Somehow, learning about the past was supposed to help Blythe deal with the actions of those in the present who had caused her pain and grief.

I never "got" it.  I failed to see why learning about the past actions of her ancestors would help solve present day problems.  I would have been happy with the book dealing with the past and present without all the psychological babble about there being changes in DNA caused by past occurrences that would affect a person generations later.  Just a nice little romance book would have been fine.

While parts of the book were enjoyable, it just wasn't my cup of tea.

NOT A HAPPY CAMPER

Yesterday was not a good day at my house.  I woke up to a computer that was slower than molasses.  I could have cooked an entire Thanksgiving dinner in the time it took a program to load.  If it would load at all.  Usually, I'd get a loading screen then nothing - and then I couldn't close it to get out.  The only thing I could do was to shut down the computer.  And then it wouldn't start again.

I contacted HP to get some help.  Yanky (strange name!) gave me 5 different things to do and told me I could print out the instructions.  All well and good, except for one thing - the computer didn't recognize the printer.  I finally got the instructions loaded onto a flash drive, put them in Dom's computer and printed them.  After about 2 hours to get all this done, it made no difference.

One thing I did notice was that my virus protection program kept telling me that it was not turned on.  I'd turn it on, and it would turn itself off again.  I downloaded another copy of the program and finally got it to load - and all of a sudden the computer started working again.  Faster, but still with a few little burps.  I decided that I was not going to turn it off again, as it still was hard to get it to boot up.

I kept it on all night, running a virus scan.  Finished this morning and it showed the computer was clean.  And it's running great right now.  Fingers and toes are still crossed.  I'm not sure what caused the problem and I don't know if it's really fixed for good.  Thank goodness the computer is under warranty.  If there's any more problem, it's going into the computer hospital until it's well again!

WE'RE NUMBER 1!

We finished our summer bowling league today, and my team is number 1 - again!  We've won this league 3 of the past 4 years!

Our anchor bowler, Tony, won high average, most improved, and high scratch series.  Great bowling, Tony!

Tony, Vicki and Sharon - the best teammates ever!